


Paranormal Spooktivity

by Marasa



Category: RedLetterMedia RPF
Genre: California, Flirting, Fluff, Ghosts?, Haunted Hotel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Pining, That one trope where they share a bed, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 09:00:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21159023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marasa/pseuds/Marasa
Summary: After Jay drug him all the way to California for a weekend of shitty B-movies at some film festival without much of a choice to him, it’s nice that it’s Mike’s turn to be selfish on their last night in Los Angeles.





	Paranormal Spooktivity

After Jay drug him all the way to California for a weekend of shitty B-movies at some film festival without much of a choice to him, it’s nice that it’s Mike’s turn to be selfish on their last night in Los Angeles.

The hotel looks untouched since it’s construction in the 1920s. Mike gapes up at the chandelier in the lobby and remarks on the spookiness of the slightly gothic architecture. 

“Yes sir,” the woman at the check-in counter says, “we have four rooms available. All of them have a single queen-sized bed.”

Mike looks back at Jay. Jay shrugs a shoulder. “We’ve come this far.”

“Okay,” Mike says. “We’ll take one.”

“Which floor? We do have one on the third floor, which is one of our more spiritually active floors.”

“Ooh, yeah. We’ll take that one.”

He looks over at Jay for any input or opinion but Jay doesn’t say anything, just grips the straps of his backpack a little harder. 

The decorum is a old-timey and spooky in a subtle way, where everything looks _ just _off without being horror movie pathetic. Their room preserves the same gothic aesthetic that’s like a drug to Mike.

“I’m so hungry.” Jay stores his suitcase in the closet as Mike tucks his against the wall. “Let’s go check out that restaurant downstairs.”

“Yeah, sure. After the ghost tour.”

Jay deflates. He stares murderously at Mike, and Mike is half-terrified and half-turned on by his trademark look of subtle rage. 

“Don’t start, you little shit.” Mike points a finger at him. “You drug me across the nation just to see a couple of shitty films at some musty theater.”

“Mike, it was a historic theater.”

“And this is historic too! Can’t you feel the history? Can’t you,” Mike looks around, raises his hands, “smell it?”

“Yeah, it smells like shit and dust.”

“Ghosts are supposed to smell like sulfur, right?”

“I think that’s demons.”

“We’ll ask the tour guide. Now come on!”

Jay pouts the whole time Mike buys their tickets to the tour. The more and more people start showing up, the more Jay’s mood wanes. He’s trying to look too cool for these dorky people all around him, but to Mike, he looks hilarious in his new The Evil Dead shirt he picked up from the event and that sourpuss tugging at his mouth.

Mike actually snickers. Jay scowls with a grumble of something Mike can’t hear.

Mike finds himself looking over at him to check his expression. Jay’s ditched the look of annoyance to one of vague intrigue as Colin the Tour Guide relays information about the history of the hotel.

Jay wanders a little bit in front of him to inspect the pattern of the wallpaper Colin points out is actually comprised of a little interlocked keys. Mike sneaks a quick glance at his ass in his black jeans, wonders if those are a new pair and if Jay is aware of how great he looks.

Mike’s eyes flick upward just as Jay looks back at him.

“Hm?” 

Jay steps closer to him. Colin’s still blabbering up at the front of the group. Mike hears none of it because he’s suddenly too distracted by the blatant height difference. 

“Kinda cool,” Jay says in a hushed voice and Mike can smell him: hair gel, expensive soap, minty mouthwash.

He nods stupidly. “Yeah, I guess.”

Then the tour gets to the good stuff, that being the many ghosts reportedly spotted. He guides them down a hallway where photos of ghosts taken in the hotel have been framed. Mike and Jay inspect them with a clinical gaze given their thorough experience slogging through bad CGI but it’s hard to find any of the identifying marks of technical interference.

“Kinda cool,” Mike murmurs in agreement that comes a whole ten minutes later.

In the reflection of the glass, he can see the slight uptick of Jay’s brows as they knit together, the twitch of his mouth. 

Some old woman begins to tell a thorough story about a supernatural experience that happened to her _ just last night _ (imagine that!). Both Mike and Jay roll their eyes and share a small smirk that feels surprisingly intimate.

Or maybe that’s Mike just being hopeful.

“And this is the room where the masked killer actually stayed after committing three murders in 1937.” They stop in front of the room, the door open halfway. “Now, some say they can still hear him laughing. And if you look closely, and you may even see him-“

A figure jumps out from behind the door with a gross cackle. His face is hidden behind a vintage cat mask and his fingers are curled into claws at either side of his head.

The whole tour group gasps. The old lady with the long story screams. At best, Mike’s eyes widen as he stiffens up for half a second but then he’s returned back to his usual state of apathetic unamusement. 

The man, with a nametag reading ‘Jim’ pinned to his workshirt, slips off his mask and gives a friendly wave to the chuckling tour group. 

Mike scoffs quietly because that was lame as shit and really fucking embarrassing. He turns to share another reaction with Jay.

He blinks. 

Jay’s plastered against his side. His fingers are digging into Mike’s soft bicep. His face is mostly hidden against him as he flinches viciously from the sudden surprise. 

Mike melts. Fuck if this doesn’t stroke some caveman instinct in him that makes him want to scoop the little bastard up in his arms and haul him off from the eyes of the world so he can keep him all for himself. 

Mike clears his throat, whispers, “Hey.”

Jay peeks his eyes open. He looks up at Mike with this weird expression halfway between embarrassed and grateful. He immediately separates himself like Mike’s burned him, so embarrassed that the tips of his ears are red.

What the hell was that? And what’s been up with this trip? 

It feels like they’ve been dancing around each other more than usual. 

Jay tries his best to play it off. It’s too late. The group may be moving on but Mike’s not. He’s still replaying that touch on his bicep, the press of Jay’s toned chest against his side, how Jay’s first reaction to danger was to seek protection and comfort in _ him _.

Mike suppresses a smile.

They pass through more hallways, old dining rooms, the service corridors, all of which are supposedly full of ghosts. 

Any other day Mike would be captivated by the chance of seeing some old timey apparition but there’s a part of him that wants to fuck off out of this tour and take Jay with him back to the room away from all these people. A scarier part of him wants to hold Jay’s cheek and whisper to him that he’s okay, what can he do to make it better?

Instead he swallows and says with a forced smile and a tone of teasing playfulness, “Are you scared of ghosts, Jay?” 

“I’m scared of total strangers jumping out at me.”

“That’s basically a ghost’s whole thing, though.”

“Shut up,” Jay hisses. “None of this shit is real, by the way. That’s why they had to get that asshole to jump out at us, because they couldn’t get a real ghost to do it.”

“So, they can communicate with ghosts and what? Make them scare us? You know how stupid that sounds, right?”

Jay doesn’t respond. He can’t formulate an adequate defense for his behavior and something in Mike rejoices at the fact.

Dinner is better.

After the tour, they walk to the restaurant on the ground floor. It’s dimly lit and is soundtracked by quiet chatter and tinkling silverware. They’re seated across from each other at a table near the wall and Mike thinks he’s had dreams like this, daydreams at the very least. 

“Oh, look at that.”

Jay hums in question, his eyes flicking up at him before returning to his menu. 

“Says right here on the menu,” Mike says, “‘All meals are made by our very own team of ghost chefs.’ Wow, they’ve employed supernatural entities from beyond the grave to cook. Very cool.”

Jay rolls his eyes. 

“What? You don’t want celestial spirit hands touching your food? Talk about a ‘historical’ experience.”

“Oh God,” Jay says, a smile pulling at his mouth. “It’s sad because you think you’re funny.”

“Says the guy who routinely laughs at my shitty jokes.”

Jay tries not to laugh but then he’s breaking and he’s laughing and hiding his mouth behind his hand and doesn’t he know his teeth are fine, that Mike didn’t even mind his teeth back before he got braces, that he had found them oddly alluring?

Thankfully they have alcohol in this place, though they’ll have to settle for locally-brewed. Alcohol is alcohol and it’s greatly needed.

They finish their meals but continue to nurse their drinks, simply digesting their food in this relaxed atmosphere of dim light and behind the mask of anonymity that being from out of town offers them.

Mike makes a little grunt in question when there’s the lightest tap on his foot from the man across from him. Jay doesn’t acknowledge it, just keeps talking about how different California is from Milwaukee.

So Mike shrugs it off, doesn’t acknowledge it if Jay won’t. But then it’s happening again, and again, and the side of Jay’s foot is pressed against his firmly, only moving to offer little taps.

Okay, he probably thinks he’s hitting the chair leg or the post of the table. Mike doesn’t get his hopes up and tries to make the push of his own foot against his as natural as possible like he’s readjusting so Jay can realize his mistake.

But Jay doesn’t care; He’s aware.

It’s like the touch during the ghost tour has awoken something in him. Mike recognizes this as Jay unwittingly chasing that closeness. It’s like he’s reaching for him, the way he rests his entire arm on the table and leans too far forward as he explains something, his fingers twitching against Mike’s wrist. It’s not even subtle anymore but Jay just goes on like this is normal for them. 

He’s always been a little clueless when it comes to romance, the poor fuck. There was an occasion at a house party thrown by a friend of a friend where some pretty girl had taken a shining to Jay. 

She slid in next to him on the couch and smiled too enthusiastically and laughed loudly at all his shitty jokes and the second he stepped out to go to the bathroom, Mike had watched as she readjusted her boobs in her bra and tugged the collar of her shirt down a little more to show off her cleavage, and it had taken everything in Mike to not laugh right there and say, _ “Honey, you’re wasting your time.” _

Jay had only gotten good looking relatively recently. He was more of an acquired taste before then, a taste that fit Mike’s preferences completely. It had initially been a shock that his type was ‘embarrassing film nerd goblin’ but Mike had ultimately embraced his infatuation.

Not too many girls were into that type, though. 

None at all, actually. 

Mike looks at Jay now, with his quaffed hair and trimmed beard and straight teeth and he concludes that these good looks are like a superpower Jay doesn’t know yet how to wield. 

Girls come up to him at bars frequently, a few guys too (much to Mike’s chagrin), expecting a smooth conversation and some expert flirting from a handsome guy that looks well put together. Imagine their surprise when all they get is a slew of Friday the 13th trivia or a story about how he won an auction for Gremlins 2 props, and then have to listen to him awkwardly stutter when he gets too flustered trying to remember the title of some B movie.

“Have you ever dated anyone?” Mike had asked one night over a few beers while they watched some stupid comedy that was everything but funny.

Jay scoffed. “Are you kidding me? Girls didn’t even look at me in school.”

“But outside of school.”

Jay took another swig of his beer, then murmured dejectedly, “I haven’t even kissed anyone.”

Mike hadn’t been expecting that. Hadn’t Jay ever played truth or dare growing up? Spin the bottle? Seven minutes in Heaven?

Then Mike remembered Jay most likely wasn’t attending high school parties but rather staying holed up in his dark, dingy basement binging cheapo horror movies alone like it was his religion. 

“That’s okay.”

Jay looked at him. 

“I mean,” Mike cleared his throat, “what? It’s fine.” 

Jay chewed the corner of his lip. Mike’s heartbeat raced. 

“I haven’t even held anyone’s hand.”

Mike couldn’t help the airy chuckle that escaped him. He felt a little less of a jerk when Jay joined him. 

“I’m a complete loser,” Jay laughed. 

“Yeah you are!”

“Shut up, asshole!”

“Jesus, Jay. Here.”

Mike rested his right hand, palm up, on the small space between them. Jay stared at it, looked up at Mike with a mask of humor poorly drawn over his glittering hopefulness.

Jay carefully placed his hand in Mike’s. 

Both of them looked down to where their hands were joined, where Jay twitched his fingers, where they slid their palms ever so slightly, where they finally slotted their fingers together. 

And when Mike began absently stroking his thumb over Jay’s, he caught the way Jay drew in a quick breath followed closely by a lilting sigh that sounded so sweet and sensitive that Mike wanted to cry. Jay dipped his chin closer to his chest and squeezed his fingers a little harder as an internal battle played out within him of whether or not he should do something more.

Oh, and how Mike had waited for Jay to do something. He would have taken such good care of him, worshipped him, given it to him hard until he was breathless, or so slow and soft that his teethed would ache from the sweetness. 

All Jay had to do was take that step into the unknown with him, reach out and touch his arm, chest, face, part his lips and ask for more.

It hadn’t happened that night. Mike thinks it might be happening right now.

Mike has to bite the inside of his cheek to prevent from asking, _ “Jay, what do you want? Just tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.” _

“One check,” Mike tells the waiter when he comes to collect their empty plates.

“What?” Jay says. “Mike, no.”

“Hush.” Mike turns back to the waiter with a nod that locks in his decision to pay for the both of them. “It’s the least I can do for dragging you here. I know this isn’t your thing.”

When the bill comes, Jay reaches for the receipt, the pen, and this whole exchange involves Jay’s hands over his tugging at his wrist, and it really feels more like Jay trying to crawl under his skin rather than wanting to pay. 

Mike doesn’t think Jay has ever touched him as much as he has in the past two hours.

“Ow!” Mike hisses when Jay’s fingernails accidentally drag down the backs of his hands, all the while trying his best to ignore the twitching in his pants. 

“Be quiet, asshole! People are looking!” Jay laughs as he leans in, his expression is tinted with a dangerous degree of playfulness.

They giggle together and underneath the table, Jay’s ankle hooks around Mike’s and Mike surrenders and lets his foot be maneuvered and tugged in Jay’s direction. 

“I’ll pay the next time we go out,” Jay says.

“Next time?”

Jay opens his mouth, closes it. He’s blushing in the dim restaurant lighting as he fiddles with his silverware on his plate. Mike smiles softly, says, “That sounds good, Jay.”

The look Jay gives him from under his lashes knocks all the breath out of Mike. 

They finish their admittedly weak beers, ankles still interlocked, and then they’re walking back up to their room. They decide to take the elevator rather than the ‘haunted’ staircase up to the third floor because they’re on vacation and fuck unnecessary excerise.

As soon as they get off the elevator, Mike and Jay share a brief moment of shock before realizing the figure at the end of the hall is not, in fact, a ghost but Jim, the hotel employee with the mask during the tour.

He’s walking toward the elevators and they’re walking to their room and Mike has the strangest reaction just as they begin to pass each other because he finds himself physically putting himself between Jay and the cheery staff member so he’s mostly hidden behind the wall of his body. 

Jim gives them a smile as he says, “How was the tour, guys? Good?” 

Mike doesn’t respond but gives him a passing look that says, _ “Try something, bitch.” _

“What’s up with you?” Jay’s smiling, maybe knowingly, watching his face as Mike unlocks the door. “You okay?”

Mike grumbles. “Just need a break from all these weirdos. The ghosts aren’t worth it if you have to put up with all this shit.”

“It’s almost like ghosts aren’t real and this whole hotel’s filled with a bunch of annoying people who believe in stupid shit.”

“Hey, careful.”

Jay laughs as he walks into the room, shoots Mike a mischievous look over his shoulder that reads, _ ‘Or what?’ _

Once the door is closed, the tension between them increases tenfold. It feels like anything is possible in this very moment. They’re both balanced on the thinning ice of their refusal to acknowledge these feelings buried in their chests, and it’s cracking as Jay looks up at Mike with a lick of his lips and Mike’s hands curl into fists at his sides so he doesn’t accidentally reach out and take Jay’s face into his hands and lick deeply into his mouth. 

Mike has to be practical. 

Because he thinks if Jay really liked him like that, he would have said something after all these years together. If anything, what they do is light teasing, simply a crumb of interest that’s fun for Jay to ponder. 

Feeling a little sorry for himself, Mike scratches the side of his neck, looks away. “I was gonna go shower, unless you wanna go first.”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind. It’s just I’m kinda tired-“

“No, no, yeah, go ahead.”

Jay collects his change of clothes as well as his arsenal of shampoo, conditioner and body wash before hurrying off into the bathroom. Mike collapses back on the edge of the bed. He rests his head in his hands. 

He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. 

It suddenly feels all too real. There’s nowhere to hide. He battles with whether or not to buy another one of the three remaining rooms so he can catch his breath again. 

Jay emerges fifteen minutes later, showered and fresh. He puts away his dirty clothes and takes out his phone, a movie already loaded up on the screen. 

When Mike steps out of the bathroom freshly-showered and in a t-shirt and sweatpants some time later, Jay’s sitting up under the sheets. The movie on his phone is paused where his phone rests on his knee. His eyes flit along the opposite wall and then up to the ceiling. 

“How’re we doing this?” Mike asks, throwing his towel into the corner. “Do you want me to sleep on the floor?”

Jay shakes his head a little too quickly. His hand slides across the sheets in Mike’s general direction like he’s beckoning him. 

“What happened?”

“Umm...” Jay trails off. “Not ghosts.”

Mike smirks. “Of course not.”

Jay refuses to admit any spooky occurrence but mentions how the old wood of the place is creaky and making strange noises. 

“It’s not ghosts,” Jay insists a little more assertive but less convincing. “It’s just the atmosphere that’s weirding me out. Hurry up and get in bed before I change my mind.”

And Mike has to fight from running to his side and telling him that of course he’d beat any ghost’s ass for even looking at him. Wait, could you punch a ghost?

Mike slips into bed and under the covers. Jay puts up his phone and nods at him to turn out the light. 

Darkness fills the room. 

There’s silence again but this time it isn’t awkward. It’s comfortable, like a blanket draped over the both of them and they can feel the warmth radiating from each other through the shared sheets.

“What the fuck was that?”

Mike tilts his head in Jay’s direction. “What?”

“Listen.”

“I don’t hear anything-“

“Shut up. Listen.”

Mike does, would do anything Jay asked him and kind of hates that he would, and then something creaks high above them. 

“That’s what I was hearing while you were in the bathroom!”

“Yes, Jay. It’s creaking wood, just like you said. Probably someone walking around above us. Y’know, I thought with all the horror movies you watch, you’d be more stoked for an experience like this.”

“There’s a difference between fiction and reality. Just because I like slasher movies doesn’t mean I want to get fucking murdered.”

“No, you want to do the murdering, you weirdo.”

They slip into laughter together, their eyes on the ceiling and their joy shaking the mattress.

Then Jay’s fingers brush against Mike’s under the covers. Their laughter quiets, silences completely when Jay summons the courage to drape his hand atop Mike’s.

“You’ve been wanting to do this all night,” Mike murmurs, “haven’t you?” 

There’s a beat of fragile silence and then Jay is whispering back, “So?”

Mike smirks in the dark, looks to wall, then looks over to Jay. 

Even in the dark of the room, he can see Jay’s throat bob, hears his feet shift in a soft _ whoosh _ of the clean sheets. And maybe that twitch of Jay’s brow comes from the fear of what may be lurking in the dark or maybe it’s from the fear of initiating intimacy as simple as this. 

Mike threads their fingers together. Jay exhales a steady breath from his parted lips.

“You’re okay, Jay. ‘m right here.”

Jay squeezes Mike’s fingers. He shifts closer so his forehead is barely touching Mike’s shoulder.

Mike drifts off in the silence that follows almost immediately. There’s no better way to fall asleep than with Jay’s hand in his own and the shy brush of his head against him, and Mike’s nodding off but only for a little while because then there’s a tug of his hand and a squeeze of his forearm and with a hiss of hushed panic. 

“Mike!”

“Hm? What? What happened?”

Mike startles awake to the sight of Jay much closer now, their sides pressed together. Jay’s staring up at the ceiling and he’s tugging their joined hands to rest on his stomach, warm and fluttering with jolting breath.

“_ Look.” _

Mike follows his gaze upward. 

“Oh yeah,” Mike muses at the strange shadow cast by the moonlight through the window. “I see it now. I don’t know. It looks like a shadowy figure hovering above us, doesn’t it?”

Jay flees into his side again, this time actively clinging. 

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!”

Jay pummels his fist against Mike’s arm again and again and it tickles Mike more than anything.

“Oh ho ho, now look who believes in ghosts!”

“Shut up!”

Mike laughs and suddenly Jay’s chomping his teeth down into the soft flesh of Mike’s bicep through his sleeve.

“Shit!”

Now it’s Jay’s turn to laugh. Mike’s arm is throbbing beneath that damp patch of fabric of his sleeve but the pricks of pain stoke something exciting in his gut. They’ve never done anything like this before but Mike’s all in if Jay wants to play that way.

He snarls and Jay’s laughter weakens and then Mike’s retaliating with a nip to Jay’s clothed shoulder. He’s warm beneath Mike’s teeth. Soft. 

The gasp that escapes Jay makes Mike’s stomach flutter.

Jay’s eyes glint with something desperate in his eyes, his lips parted and his eyes half-lidded like he’s begging for more. Jay’s been trying everything in the book entitled, ‘Awkward Attempts at Flirting 101’ instead of just admitting to Mike what he wants and Mike wants to take care of him, can’t take it anymore.

“C’mere.”

Mike turns onto his side. Jay blinks at him for a moment that goes on for almost too long, but then he scoots closer, closer, close enough so Mike can wrap an arm possessively around his torso. Jay rests an open hand on Mike’s chest and the ice finally busts, that hesitation and fear and whatever else crumbling into pieces. 

Now they’re floating in waters previously unexplored. It’s overwhelming. It’s exhilarating. Jay lets himself be carried away by the flow. 

The groping of his hands are shaky, clumsy, greedy. He’s touching Mike but he doesn’t know how to, just knows he wants Mike under his palms. He ends up doing this weird pawing at Mike’s biceps, tugging randomly at his shirt collar and scratching lightly at his gut, all the while squeezing his eyes closed tightly in embarrassment, unwilling to see Mike’s presumed expression of estrangement. 

But Mike’s looking on fondly, maybe even a little smugly. 

Jay’s trembling with excitement. He pushes his forehead against Mike’s chest and slides his hand up from Mike’s stomach so it rests beside his head before sliding it back down again. His lips are parted so Mike can feel every breath through his shirt. Jay nuzzles and nudges his face against Mike, unsure of how else to show this isn’t enough. 

“Jay.” Mike’s voice is a low whisper; it rumbles his chest. Jay shutters against him. “You have to tell me what you need. I’ll give it to you but you have to tell me.”

Jay whines high in his throat. Stubborn. 

Something in the room shifts again, a distant step or a settling of the wood, maybe even the creak of the bed of someone fucking in the room above them, but Jay doesn’t mind it at all. He looks comfortable, preoccupied with the shape of Mike’s soft peck beneath his palm.

“You’re not even scared are you?”

Jay smirks, huffs an airy laugh through his teeth. “Not, that scared. Still a little weirded out, but not as much as you think I am.”

Mike smiles, laughs. “You lying bitch.”

“You get this look in your eyes.” Jay looks up at him, his fingers hovering inches away from Mike’s face like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to touch him. Mike brings Jay’s hand to his cheek and Jay strokes his fingers over his stubble, captivated by the rough texture and the intimacy of the action. He has the sudden desire to know Mike by touch as much as he knows him by sight. “This intense look, whenever you’re worried about me. It looks like you would kill for me.”

Mike’s eyebrows tilt upward and Jay trembles with need, excitement, shame. 

“I don’t know what to do next.” He sounds so overwhelmed all of a sudden, mildly-distressed. It’s like he has an itch he can’t reach but he needs it itched _ right now. _

“Shh, let me take care of you.”

Mike’s a secret romantic.

His slobby lifestyle and apathetic demeanor fails to reach his romantic sensibility.

Jay would be going on about some plot point in a movie they saw together or focus in on some other technical aspect and the second he let up, Mike would swoop in with the admission of how his interest had only peaked at the introduction of the love triangle or the romantic interest.

An ex-girlfriend used to say it was because he was a Scorpio. ‘Passionate’ she had said. ‘Seductive.’ He didn’t believe in all of that shit, but it was hard to argue those alleged traits.

So Jay might have never kissed someone before but Mike knows how to barely let their bottom lips touch at first, knows how to press closer, how to part his lips, how to swallow the smallest of sounds escaping Jay’s throat on the warm breath fanning across his mouth, how to tilt his head. 

Jay’s trying his best but initially his teeth are in the way. Thankfully they’re Mike’s new favorite thing to slide his tongue over. Jay’s learning, though, and even rests a hand on Mike’s cheek during a particular deep kiss, one where their breath is one in the same and the very tips of their tongues touch. 

They’re moving so soft and slow, tasting each other with the greatest care. Jay flicks his tongue just into Mike’s mouth and it’s curious, inquisitive. Mike nibbles at his bottom lip and when Jay whines, he immediately shifts to sucking it like he’s saying silently, _ “I’ve got you, I’m sorry for teasing, I’ll make it better.” _

Mike pulls back. Jay chases after him with spit-slicked lips. Starving.

“Hold on.” Mike turns his face and Jay’s mouth lands on his chin. “We have all night. Slow down. I’m gonna take care of you.” 

Jay, spoiled rotten, doesn’t. He’s hurried and sloppy with the movement of his mouth against Mike’s chin and jaw and cheek. He’s in a fervor, greedy and unwilling to give up the feeling of Mike’s lips when he’s just discovered it. 

The way he’s frantically pressing kisses to the corner of Mike’s mouth and still straining his neck to reach him so they can slot their lips together once again is his best attempt to convince Mike to join him. And it’s kinda working, because Mike wants so badly to bend his head down and meet him and give him what he needs but he wants this to last. 

“Fine, if you can’t,” Mike says, intimidating yet playful, “then I’ll help you.”

Jay shivers, fucking keens for it, wants to be punished. Mike always knew he was a masochist. He has to bite his tongue to keep in the laugh that threatens to leave him when he decides the ultimate punishment.

Jay’s eyes are squeezed shut. His body is tense as he awaits a light slap, a pinch, any slight bit of pain. Mike lifts a hand and then-

“H- Hm?”

Mike’s fingers are featherlight at Jay’s temple. He strokes the hair there, delighted to punish Jay by refusing to punish him at all. His touch is gentle, attentive, tender.

Jay blinks up at him with a stunned expression. Maybe he didn’t know Mike was capable of being so soft. It’s so offbrand for them that Jay looks momentarily sick and revolted, but it looks so fake, like he’s obligated to play this role of ‘lover disgusted by genuine intimacy.’

And don’t get him wrong, Mike would feel the exact same way for some one night stand or sloppy hookup in the bathroom at a party, but this is Jay, and the pining has gone on for years. 

“No one’s here,” Mike whispers into his ear, a secret just for them. “You can have whatever you want, any way you want it.”

Jay fists a hand in his shirt. 

Mike leans in as a silent offer for another kiss. Jay swoops up to meet him. Mike moans himself when he recognizes the taste of the twitching tongue sliding against his own to be surrender.

They’re moving slower now. Mike wipes Jay’s swollen, wet bottom lip with his thumb and gently guides his head down to rest against his chest. He has to remind Jay to breathe deeply when he gauges the anticipatory tenseness in his muscles.

Mike starts with his fingers lightly drawing patterns on Jay’s hip. He trails a path from the gentle dip of his waist, up his side, his ribs, then back down. 

Jay’s mouth, wet, hot, is open against his chest. Mike can feel the trembling breath he exhales into the fibers of his shirt. 

Mike slips under the hem of his shirt to slide across the bare skin of his side. He’s so warm, soft too. Mike growls low in his chest, fingers splaying over the sharp jut of his hipbone. 

“_ M- Mike _.”

Jay stares up at him, open-mouthed, eyes half-lidded. 

Mike’s fingers trail over a few knots of his spine. Jay is suddenly dizzy. He tangles his fingers in the front of Mike’s shirt and makes a wistful sound.

“I got you, Jay. I’ll be wherever you want me; tell me. Where do you want me to touch you?”

Jay squeezes his eyes shut. He shakes his head. “D- Don’t ask me that. Just… _ please _, Mike.”

“Shh, all right, all right.”

Mike gently scratches his fingers against the soft skin of Jay’s hip. Fuck, he wants to mark him. He wants to make his skin itch and burn, wants Jay to touch where he touched long after they wake.

Jay makes a strangled whimper and presses his cheek firmly against Mike’s chest.

“I know,” Mike coos, maybe mockingly, maybe sincerely. “I know it feels good. No one touches you like this, do they?”

Jay inhales through his teeth. It sounds like a snarl. 

Mike’s fingers stroke the elastic band of his flannel pajama pants before dipping under them and his underwear. Jay’s breathing turns ragged.

He takes a hold of Jay’s ass cheek, his thumb stroking the soft skin and he can feel how hot Jay’s face is against him, wants to tell him that there’s no reason to be embarrassed. 

He fits perfectly with Mike. Can’t he feel it now?

Mike gives a small squeeze to the pillowy flesh in his grasp. Jay’s makes a broken hum deep in his throat, cheeks dusted with a delicious blush all the way up to his ears.

Mike’s looking down at him, smiling tiredly, appreciative of this slow motion unraveling of his best friend and crush. He lessens his grip and traces his fingers over his ass crack before bringing his hand back up to his lower back, then around to his chest. 

Mike strokes the backs of his fingers down Jay’s chest, his pinky nail catching the bud of his nipple standing erect under his shirt. He wants to suck them so badly but he leaves it for now, thinks it might be too much off the bat unless Jay demands it. He settles for slight pressure and a brief flick over the erect peaks of skin that makes Jay absolutely cry. 

Jay rolls his hips forward against Mike’s. Mike pauses in his ministrations, blushes for the first time tonight. 

Jay’s so hard against him and the way his face screws up makes Mike think his arousal might be painful. 

“Take care of yourself,” Mike whispers against Jay’s cheek. He presses a kiss the corner of his mouth when Jay makes a small sound. “It’s just me, Jay. Do you trust me?”

Jay scoffs at first, but then it pitters out into a small whine like a break of realization. “Y-Yes, Mike, _ please _.”

Mike takes Jay’s hand from its grip on his shirt, squeezes his fingers. He plants a tender kiss on his palm and carefully guides it down to where Jay needs it most. 

“Mike, this is so fucking embarrassing.”

The way Jay says it, whining weakly, melts something in Mike. He might like the look of humiliation on Jay as much as Jay does but there’s something else there too: Vulnerability. 

They always put on this apathetic, unaffected facade for Plinkett or customers or supervisors, and they had been putting it on for each other. Why did they do that?

Now there is no facade. Jay is embarrassed and horny and in love, and it’s gorgeous. He’s putting his heart on display and Mike has a front row seat. 

“If I was gonna make fun of you, I would have already,” Mike says. “It’s just you and me.”

Something soft crosses Jay’s face. Mike can feel the same softness in his chest, too. It’s the knowledge that they’re safe together, that they know each other too well. 

“Kiss me?” Jay asks for the first time and who is Mike to deny him.

He’s there to lick his tongue and suck his lip, only pulling back to watch intently as Jay’s hand dips into his pants. Mike’s heartbeat quickens when he hears him sigh.

“There you go.” Mike strokes a thumb across Jay’s flushed cheek. “That’s what you needed.”

Mike swallows Jay’s gasp when he twists his wrist on the next upward stroke, his hot cockhead slipping against the ridges of his clasped fingers. 

Mike fingers trail over his heated skin, nearly investigative but maintaining their gentle caress. The outside of his thigh, the warm space between his legs just below his ass, feeling the knuckles of the hand on his dick from over the fabric of his pants, his damp lower back, quivering shoulder blades, lolling neck. 

Mike wraps an arm around Jay’s torso and holds him closer to his chest. His other hand comes up to gently scratch his scalp from the base of his head up to the crown, over and over and over.

“_ A- Ah _ ! Mmph, pl-, Mike, _ Mike- _“

“Shh…”

Jay whines, looks down at the shiny, red cockhead push out from between his fingers again and again. It sounds so wet. 

Mike smiles fondly, has to bite his tongue so he doesn’t ruin this by saying, _ “Aww.” _ It’s strange he would think to do so anyway considering he’s never seen a dick he’s considered cute. 

Mike reaches down and Jay makes a worried sound, uncertain, but Mike doesn’t touch him there, instead grabs the hem of his shirt and whispers, “So you don’t shoot on your shirt.”

Jay throws his head back, mouth open. Mike brings his hand up to caress his Adam’s apple. When he brings his head back down, Mike’s fingers are at his lips. 

His tongue is too hot. It’s like a stove top. He strokes the soft velvet beneath his fingers as he cranes in closer, eager to watch Jay’s face and the way his lips part around the intrusion. His saliva is thin and stringy. It completely coats Mike’s fingers. He’s taken with the shine of it and then Jay hollows his cheeks. 

Jay’s never sucked dick before but he’s trying his best to convince Mike to replace his fingers. He sucks and laps at him with an eager tongue, threads it between his fingers. Mike lets Jay continue to suck his fingers while he rests his forehead against Jay’s temple, his lips resting against his cheek, only pressing a soft kiss there when he moans or whines wantonly. 

“You’re close, aren’t you?” Mike whispers in his ear before sucking his earlobe into his mouth. 

Jay whines, nods. 

Mike’s admittedly a little mean for a second, says in a whiny voice mimicking Jay’s desperation, “Mmhm, you’re so, so close. Aren’t you close, Jay? Don’t you want to cum?”

Thankfully Jay responds well to it like he loves it because he exclaims, “Yes! Please, _ please- _“

“Then cum, baby.”

Jay’s lip curls at the name, a fire flashing briefly in his eyes. But then it’s gone as he’s more preoccupied with the heat in his belly and the tightening of his balls.

He grips at Mike’s shirt, pants against his throat. Thin threads of precum wrap around his fingers and squelch with every quickening stroke. He quickens his hand and finally cum is spurting from his tip and painting his exposed stomach. 

It’s a pretty sight. 

But Mike’s not looking there anymore. He’s looking at Jay’s face as it breaks into a million pieces of different emotion. It’s insane. 

A series of dry sobs force themselves out of his pretty mouth. Jay looks so undone, so painfully sensitive. He manages a few words but they’re hushed and high in his throat, hidden behind broken whimpers. 

“_ M- Mike- _“

“I have you. I’m right here, Jay.”

Mike brushes a strand of sweaty hair from his forehead and rests his palm on Jay’s cheek, thumb stroking his cheekbone where a single tear has fallen.

Pathetic little thing.

So starved for intimacy and humiliated by the fact he had to jack his own dick after some soft petting by Mike. 

Mike wants to devour him.

He tilts Jay’s chin up and joins their lips together again. Jay’s drooling a little bit but it’s good.

Mike scoops up the pearls of semen off his skin and brings it to Jay’s lips. Surprisingly, Jay gives no protest as he licks it up from Mike’s hand. 

“You’ve done this before?” Mike says. “You’ve tasted yourself.”

Jay huffs, licks another drop of his cum from Mike’s fingers. 

Jay’s quiet for once in his life, fucked out and exhausted from a day of travel and a hard orgasm. He’s somewhere far off in his own head, but his hand balled up in Mike’s shirt is squeezing at random intervals like he’s testing the durability of his tether back to Earth. 

No one will ever see Mike like this, attentive and considerate. He knows this is only for Jay. He can only hope Jay is his, has to suppress a weird snarl in his chest when he thinks about someone else above him making him cum, making him cry. 

“Hey.”

Jay’s hand is on his cheek. He’s beckoning him back from his hateful imaginings. Mike leans in to kiss him and it’s bruising and wet and tired and lovely.

“Gonna sleep before I freak myself out again,” Jay murmurs as he curls up against Mike’s chest. 

Mike wraps his arms a little tighter around him. “I’ll protect you, you disbelieving hack.”

And Mike finds for the first time ever he really doesn’t care if ghosts are real or not because this, Jay in his arms, fucked out and sweaty, is the realest thing he’s ever experienced. 


End file.
